One of my favorite Godly Play stories is the "Holy Family".  It's a simple story, really, but is told in such a way that one might reconsider any preconceived notions of the nativity.  Hand-carved, wooden nativity figures are set out in classic form and the children are reminded of fragile nativities that they may have seen elsewhere.   "Don't touch it!  It might break!", they may hear when approaching grandma's special heirloom nativity, however, in Godly Play, they are assured: "This nativity is for you". The characters of the nativity are introduced--meet Mary, Joseph, the donkey who helped pregnant Mary get to Bethlehem, and the cow who was surprised to find a baby in his feed dish.  The story continues with an introduction of the shepherds, who heard angels singing and were afraid, and their sheep.  The Godly Play set only includes 3 sheep, but the story is good to remind us that though our set has one shepherd and three sheep--there were likely a number of shepherds with many, many sheep. The storyteller explains to the children that the one shepherd and three sheep represent the many who may have journeyed to Bethlehem to see the mystery that happened.  Some children begin to wonder about the numbers of cows, donkeys, and otherwise in the nativity.  Other children don't skip a beat and want to hear about the wise men.  My mind goes to the endless numbers of sheep being lead towards the Christ Child--I can picture the hillsides covered with wooly, bleating animals.  Because we don't have enough room in our houses for all the sheep that may have been at the nativity, we use just a few to represent the many.  I wonder how many of the sheep actually found their way to see Jesus?